On Friday the Red Sox returned home from a 2-4 road trip against the Padres and the Astros, marking the end of a month-long gauntlet where the team played the division-leading Astros twice and each of the three division leaders (at the time they played them) in the National League. At 66-56, only 40 games were remaining, approximately 3/4 of the way through the season. The team held on to the top Wild Card spot, which, if you’re not going to win your division, is an essential position to be in as you would
host ALL three games of the Wild Card series at Fenway Park.
At this point in the season, you should know everything that you need to know about your team. Garrett Crochet had a start skipped in July, no problem. Greg Weissert and Brennan Bernardino needed to have their workload reduced in recent weeks due to overuse in the first half of the season, which is understandable. But by now, the extra time off around the All-Star break should be a thing of the past, and the Best-26 should be in Boston. That has not been the case during this pathetic home stand.
The slew of questionable moves started on August 1st, when the team sent Bernardino to the minor leagues and kept Jorge Alcala on the major league roster, presumably because Bernardino still had minor league options. Bernardino had not given up a run since June 27th, a span of 13 innings over 11 appearances. Unlike with Weissert, who got extra rest in July at the major league level, Bernardino would not be allowed to be recalled for 15 days (unless there was an injury). Roster flexibility is great in April and May, but it shouldn’t matter much in August. Alcala was designated for assignment anyway on August 5th, after numerous appearances that forced unnecessary usage of closer Aroldis Chapman, outlined here.
When Alcala was DFA’d, Isaiah Campbell was called up, which was a curious choice, to say the least. In his previous stints with the big league club over 2024-25, Campbell had a 14.54 ERA over 8 2/3 innings with batters hitting .409 against him. He also wasn’t exactly kicking the door down at Triple-A, with a 5.79 ERA over 18 2/3 innings in the past two months and a .346 batting average allowed, prior to his recall. In Saturday’s win over the Marlins, Campbell allowed four hits and three earned runs in the ninth inning, forcing Aroldis Chapman to close out the game. This directly led to Chapman being unavailable on Sunday, a save opportunity blown in a group effort, and the start of this three-game losing streak. Somehow, Campbell was not demoted to Worcester four minutes after the game in favor of Bernardino (whose 15 days had now passed), or Cooper Criswell, or Richard Fitts, or Alfredo Aceves, or Ugueth Urbina. In fact, Campbell is still on the active roster.
Chris Murphy was also demoted on August 11th, in favor of Jovani Moran, who made his Red Sox debut. Moran was used twice in the week that he was with Boston, allowing three runs in four innings, and was sent back down after Monday’s game. While Murphy did have a poor performance in San Diego (four walks, two runs), he has 10 out of 14 scoreless appearances this season and seemed like he was gaining the trust of the coaching staff before his demotion.
And then there’s Ali Sanchez. Sanchez was claimed off waivers from Toronto and added to the active roster on Monday, August 11 as protection for Carlos Narvaez’s lingering injury. It might’ve made sense for Sanchez to be there because Narvaez would have a backdated IL stay, but Narvaez was used off the bench on Sunday August 10, which restarted his injury clock. The team chose to keep Sanchez around all week, playing a man short on the bench for the entire week, save for his one pinch-hit appearance in a 14-1 game. In Sunday’s Boston Globe notes, there was a comment that confounded things even further:
“Cora also said that Sánchez is a player the Sox are thinking about for the future, too.”
I’m sorry, what? So, was the team carrying three catchers until rosters expanded in September, so that 28-year-old Ali Sanchez, a man with a .185/.222/.235 slash line and 0 home runs in 47 career games, could be the catcher of the future? No, Sanchez was DFA’d on Monday.
I, for one, will never forget the Ali Sanchez era.
Finally, while Nathaniel Lowe was a no-brainer signing for a team that badly needs pop from first base, Abraham Toro was not cut as the corresponding move, even though it was clearly time for him to go. Since June 13th, Toro is slashing .194/.261/.263 with a 41 wRC+ and just two home runs in 180 plate appearances. He sits at -4 Outs Above Average, in the 13th percentile defensively. While he provided a nice boost in the month that followed Tristan Casas’ injury, this has gone on far too long, which was apparent a month ago when the team should have traded for Josh Naylor at the trade deadline.
It would be entirely reasonable to question Jordan Hicks and Walker Buehler’s roles on this team as well, but I can only put so much negativity into one column.
Craig Breslow chose to do next-to-nothing at the trade deadline, despite promises to the contrary, a month after trading away a cornerstone bat. Compounding that with a roster that is not optimized during the final quarter of the season is inexcusable. Brennan Bernardino returned on Tuesday and, of course, threw a shutout inning on just six pitches. Hopefully Justin Slaten is right behind him in returning. However, a three-game losing streak to the Marlins and Orioles has this team looking like the early 2025 Red Sox and not the team we’ve seen in recent weeks. Even if they do make the playoffs, they may have to play exclusively on the road if they cannot regain the top wild-card spot. Get it together, and optimize this roster Bres, you stiff.
